


The Titan's Tide

by Goonlalagoon



Series: S.P.Q.R. [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Camp Jupiter, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, The Second Titan War (Percy Jackson), The Twelfth Legion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-24 05:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30067269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goonlalagoon/pseuds/Goonlalagoon
Summary: Jason Grace never expected a quiet life - even before he fought his first real enemy or went on a quest. But with rumours of recent activity on Mount Othrys putting everyone on high alert and the children of Trivia falling prey to a mysterious affliction, the tensions at Camp Jupiter are growing - and that's before things in the Legion change in a way Jason never thought to imagine.[Or, part three of five following what Jason and the Romans were up to during the original PJO timeline]
Series: S.P.Q.R. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612669
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	1. I. Nulla: Prayers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> General warning that part of the backdrop to this installment is a mysterious & somtimes deadly illness that's affecting a number of people at Camp Jupiter - doesn't get into any specific symptoms between collapsing and unconciousness, but it's an unavoidable part of the stroy and the general atmosphere of fear & worry comes up a lot throughout.
> 
> I wrote the first draft of this back in 2016, and definitely did not expect to finally be getting around to posting it in a pandemic! The illness is a big enough driving force of the story that it's not an element I could remove without significant changes to a couple of plot threads, so posting as is but wanted to include a heads up

The incense in the temple of Vejovis was so thick that my eyes watered and my throat tickled. Wrinkling my nose I peered through the fog until I was certain the temple was empty - Mel had clearly already been there; I could see her prepared offering laying on the shrine, another increasingly desperate prayer for assistance. I paused a moment longer and sent my own murmured plea off, for all I didn’t think it likely the god of healing would hear me any more than anyone else.

Wiping my streaming eyes as I stepped away from the door, I looked around the other temples on Temple Hill, wondering which Mel was likely to have gone to next. I didn’t want to shout and disturb her, or anyone else who’d made their way up the hill to leave offerings, but I was also supposed to be finding her as quickly as I could.

Passing the temple to Vesta I caught Mel’s voice on a stray puff of air, and paused in the doorway. I could see her, kneeling in front of the fire - said to be taken from the _original_ flame of Vesta, back in Rome - and murmuring, but I couldn’t hear the words. Being a boy, I also wasn’t about to risk going in. Vesta’s temples had always been _definitely_ off limits to men, and that was almost certainly still true even if no one was volunteering to test it.

“Mel!” She twisted to look over her shoulder at me, startled. I bit my lip, hating how ashy pale she was. But then, it was _her_ half-siblings who were falling ill, one by one. “Mel, um…” She heaved a sigh and got to her feet, joining me at the door of the temple.

“Who is it this time?” I shuffled my feet, feeling even worse, almost regretting my decision to be the bearer of bad news. I could have just waited for one of the praetors or one of the adults helping out from New Rome to think to run up Temple Hill, but I’d felt like I had to do it.

“It’s…it’s Anika.” Mel cursed viciously, ignoring the fact that she was in a temple, and strode to the door.

“She’s worse?” I hesitated.

“She’s…she died.”

Mel stopped short, staring. She didn’t ask if I was joking. Children of Trivia had been falling ill like flies, lying like breathing corpses in the infirmary. This wasn’t something I - anyone - would joke about. I wanted to say something, _anything_ , to comfort her, but couldn’t find any words. Instead I trailed silently after her as she turned from the path down into Camp Jupiter and instead started for the temple to Pluto.


	2. I. The joys of paperwork

It was a relief to be sent out to collect in reports the next morning. The Praetors had debated long and hard about giving me the task, then with Mel over letting me, but had decided it was easiest to send me along with a messenger eagle to collect in monitoring reports from the local area. Really, the birds were intelligent enough to do it themselves, but I think they also wanted someone who could actually _talk_ to the stationed Legionnaires rather than just carrying supplies and written missives.

And of course, that meant they had to send me, because I was the only person in the Legion who could fly under my own power. One of the little perks of being a son of Jupiter - and thank _all_ the gods there were some perks, because it seemed to me that there were plenty of downsides. One of them being the whole added appeal to monsters thing, because apparently to monster senses? I smelt like a five-star, all-you-can-eat buffet, and they tended to be happy to travel to take a shot at getting a bite. This was, I figured privately, the _real_ reason I was kept behind as a messenger boy: they didn’t want to send me out as one of the posted sentries, and had to find something to officially justify it.

This meant that my journeys had to be based around speed, but honestly? Flying full pelt alongside a giant eagle is pretty cool. Touching down at the furthest station out from camp, I couldn’t help an apprehensive glance at Mount Othrys. We’d stationed people as close as we dared, but they were still some distance from the mountain itself. In modern terms, the mountain was Mount Tamalpais, but that was only one facet of it. To demigods like me, or other descendants of the gods, it was also Mount Othrys, ancient stronghold of the Titans. The Roman gods, Titans, and other associated folk followed the shift of power in the western world after the fall of the Roman empire, settling in America for the time being. Bits of geography sort of…came with them. Not l _iterally_ \- mountains didn’t just uproot themselves, or anything - but at the same time…actually quite literally, because if I walked myself up to the top of Mount Othrys, I really would be _there_.

Except that Mel would collar me before I was even half way up, and drag me away to give me a lecture about foolish risks and the dangers that awaited me. But in _principle_ I’d reach the top of Mount Othrys - even if I was trying to get to the top of Mount Tamalpais instead.

The Twelfth Legion had always kept a wary eye on the mountain. It was why we’d settled where we had, back when we first arrived in America, building New Rome and Camp Jupiter just outside San Fransisco, almost in the shadow of one of the ancient strongholds of one of our biggest dangers. What can I say - we’re Roman, we have stubbornness issues. But it _did_ make sense. Someone had to watch out, just in case. Just in case of _what_ nobody had really thought of before, but then there had been a whisper of the Titans. Or maybe even a whisper _from_ a Titan, only I didn’t think there was any _maybe_ about it.

Not when I’d heard that voice myself. Not when I’d seen a _god_ trying to hide their fear.

So we’d been on edge since the end of the summer break, and just as it had started to seem that it had been a false alarm, or that we’d foiled whatever plans were being hatched, we got reports of disturbances on the mountain. We couldn’t get a clear idea what was going on, but it had sent us all into red alert. Whatever it was had apparently not been our problem to deal with, as far as the gods were concerned - but if it was something they dealt with themselves, it was all the more worrying for us.

Still, sentry duty was usually dull, and my visits were often considered a welcome break. Somehow, in my relief at getting out of Camp I’d managed to forget that I’d also be carrying the tidings of Anika’s death to this batch of Legionnaires. It came back to me the moment I was greeted, remembering abruptly that Reyna was another member of the second cohort as she gave me a brisk nod of welcome. Grimly, I handed the written message from the Praetors to the leader of the trio, bracing myself. Victoria glanced up, shocked, before she’d finished reading the report.

“Anika’s _dead_?” The other two crowded round, similarly startled, reading over her shoulder.

“What? She was fine when we left a few _days_ ago!”

“She collapsed at dinner the day after you left. Didn’t wake up at all…the healers tried _everything_.”

“Nectar?” I barely avoided rolling my eyes at Victoria, reminding myself sternly that she’d had a shock. She and Anika hadn’t been particularly close friends, but she’d still known her for years, and since Victoria became a centurion in the New Year they’d have worked together pretty closely.

“Yes. And ambrosia…and magic and prayers. None of it seems to do _anything_.”

Reyna had gone very still, staring distantly at the note. After a moments hesitation I gave her shoulder a brief squeeze, still not certain how to react to her. We’d been on exactly one life-or-death quest together, and thankfully by the end of it she’d stopped looking at me like she wanted to kill me every time I spoke, but she was still hard to read. But the look she shot me seemed to be something like gratitude, so at least I hadn’t messed up this time. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

“How’s the rest of my cohort?”

“Coping, but…” I shrugged. Losing _anyone_ in the Legion was bad, of course, but someone actually from your cohort was more like losing family. And Anika had been one of the Centurions for the Second, in charge of organising the cohort and reporting directly to the praetors, supporting her Legionnaires while they were at Camp. “Distraught.”

She nodded once and turned back to her observation post, wiping at her eyes and trying to hide it. I collected the messages I’d been sent for, handed over the replacement supplies, and with one last tentative pat to Reyna’s shoulder, went on my way. To visit the next three sets of people, to deliver the same news.

What a fun way to spend a day.

I’ll admit to being bitter over not being allowed in the field, even if I could understand the reasoning. I’d been leading a _quest_ less than a year before, and it stung that people with way less experience than me were out there, while I was an errand boy. Even Reyna, competent as she was, had only ever been on that same quest _and_ had far less training than me before then. But at the same time, as more and more children of Trivia fell ill, I was happier and happier to be based permanently at Camp. Not because I liked helping in the sickbay - I hated it - but because it meant I was there for Mel. None of the children of Trivia were allowed out into the field for the time being, so I could keep an eye on her. It meant that every time a new child of Trivia collapsed, I was on hand to know who it was - and be secretly, horribly relieved that it wasn’t Mel.

If things were less dire, I’d have found it funny that she’d spent near enough my whole life fussing over me, bringing me up from the day I arrived at the Legion as a toddler, and now it was me planning my every move so I could keep an eagle eye on her. She knew I was doing it, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that I recited all her lectures about sleeping and eating and checking her pulse every morning to see if she was sick, and that she obeyed, and that she somehow avoided falling ill when we had no idea what was causing it.

I had _nightmares_ about Mel falling ill, and the worst was that I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t seeing something that might actually happen. Okay, I wasn’t a kid of Apollo or anything, so _prophetic_ dreams was admittedly unlikely…but all demigods got weird dreams. And sometimes they weren’t just _oh that was strange_ weird, they were _oh that was actually happening right now_ dreams.

Mel was sitting in the praetor’s office when I dropped by to hand over my collected reports, writing something - probably a letter to Anika’s family. She glanced up briefly and gave me a weak smile, then turned back to her work.

“Jace, good timing.” Vi, the female praetor, held a hand out for my reports. She was looking worn down too, dark circles under her eyes from sleepless nights worrying about the kids in the Legion, an unusually thick layer of stubble across her chin - it wasn’t hard to tell her attention was stretched in all directions at the moment.

“D’you need any help in here?” She shot a brief, amused glance in Mel’s direction, then nodded with a wry smile. I shrugged, unrepentant.

“I do have a task for you, actually. Over here.”

Glancing over the laid out papers, I frowned. Maps, letters…nothing that looked anything to do with Mount Othrys. Vi tapped an open letter.

“We’ve been getting reports from some of the retired Legionnaires of disturbances along this coast…some kind of monster, but not one that’s easily recognised. The messages vary so much, we’re not sure what we’re dealing with.” She gestured to a chair that had been pulled up. “So you’re gonna read through the reports and see if you can figure it out…where it seems to be spending its time, anything that seems to trigger its attacks, any hints at all as to what it might actually be. Get going.”

It sounded like a headache, but I knew it was the only way I was staying in the same place as Mel rather than going to regular training. Vi was nice, but she still wasn’t going to play favourites and let me just skip the afternoon’s session purely so that I could hover around Mel. With a sigh, I settled down to work.


	3. II. Let the games begin

No matter how often we did it, waiting with the rest of my cohort for our turn in the Colosseum was always at least a little nerve-wracking.

From the part of the hypogeum - the tunnels under the Colosseum itself - where we were waiting, you could hear roughly what was going on above. You could feel your turn getting closer and closer, but had to just stand and wait patiently. The small crowd above roared in approval, and I shifted on my feet. These were only prep matches, warm ups. Really, they were just training sessions that people could drop by to watch, but _still._ Losing a pitched fight in front of a crowd was always humiliating, and unfortunately the Fifth had done our fair share of _that_. Way, _way_ more than our fair share.

But this year, I couldn’t summon the energy to feel excited about the matches. Honestly, with the way things had been going around Camp, I half thought the whole contest thing was a waste of time. Surely we were better doing, well, _anything_ useful?

Whatever I thought, the praetors and centurions had been sticking to the usual annual routine. The Colosseum had been spruced up, sign up sheets for training bouts put up…as well as entries for the big upcoming events, part of Camp Jupiter’s celebration of the Ides of March.

Not that we didn’t hold events at other times. But the weeks before the festival it became…bigger. It was a chance for people to prove what they could do, to show off and win prizes. And to test each other, either directly or just seeing who could do better. It wasn’t official, of course, but everyone knew that you got grudge matches at the Colosseum. I wasn’t old enough to take part in the full-on gladiator battles yet, which was where they were _really_ held, but then most of the people I’d get into one with weren’t either. _Yet_.

Pablo nudged me, and I wrenched my thoughts back to the present. He nodded at the doorway with a wry smile.

“Our turn…for the glory of the Fifth.”

“Sure. _Glory_.” Anya’s muttered addition was unhelpful, but accurate. Even in the group events, the Fifth tended to be the laughing stock.

“C’mon, guys, chin up!” Gwen smiled at us, but it was forced. With Mel absent - the risk of illness was too pressing for us to dare put her in the arena - she was doing her best to be our team spirit. “New year, new score. Let’s go!” I nodded and forced a smile, trying to back her up.

“Yeah, we got this!”

We trudged after her, trying to look confident and probably not being very convincing about it. Half the crowed booed. Most of the rest laughed. I glared from under the visor of my _galea -_ the special type of helmet worn for this particular event in the Colosseum line up. City crowds were better, because they mostly cheered for the sake of the spectacle. When it was watching Legionnaires, it was worse, because they saw us in training every day and either scoffed at us or mocked us. There was one real cheer, though, almost lost in the jeering, and I gave a real smile when I met Mel’s eyes. Of _course_ she’d come to watch us.

This was a _beastarii_ fight. Back in the days of original Rome, we’d have been fighting lions, tigers and the like. Nowadays, you tended to get told off for that, so the descendants of Vulcan had rigged up animatronic ones with some help from the descendants of Trivia to make them look realistic. Knowing it was a machine carefully programmed to stop just before killing you didn’t help much when it looked, sounded and _smelled_ like a real lion.

Not that I’ve met a real lion, so for all I knew they might smell completely different. But the old raw meat breath stink of these ones? It was a weapon of its own right. It didn’t help that we were wearing traditional beastarii costume. Rather than the light armor we usually wore - admittedly over jeans and t-shirt, but still - we were only in loincloths (and sports bras where relevant) with leather wraps on forearms and shins. And sandals.

That left a whole lot of skin left vulnerable, and the creatures only stopped short of actually _killing_ you. There’s an awful lot an an animatronic tiger can do to cause you pain before its sensors start warning it you’re in serious danger. Particularly because the Camp healers often have certain divine-rooted powers, or else stocks of healing ambrosia and nectar, so it really is limited to stopping at _immediately_ lethal attacks.

Still, at least the beasts were an even opponent between all the cohorts. If I took down a lion, it was the same as a Legionnaire from _any_ cohort taking down a lion. No-one could claim it went easy on me, or was too busy laughing to pay attention. Not that the Fifth were on a level playing field even then. Somehow, we always got the worst equipment, the lowest priority on the practice courts…and all of our recruits were total beginners, because anyone who arrived at the Legion with any training was snapped up by one of the other cohorts.

One of the _lares_ was calling out our names, officially starting the event. I tuned it out. It wasn’t like he ever said anything _new_ in his speeches. He’d been saying the same thing since he first started being an announcer, back when he was alive centuries ago, and wasn’t about to change now. After over a decade living at Camp Jupiter and going to events at the Colosseum, I could recite it along with him.

Someone sounded a gong, and the deactivated animatronics sprang to life, illusions rippling over metal to give the appearance of fur. That was my cue to do my own bit of theatrics. It was coin toss time.

Unlike most of the cohort, I had a weapon that didn’t come from the Camp armoury. It was a gift from my dad, Jupiter, and it had its own special properties. Not just the fact that it was made of Imperial Gold - all Camp weapons were - but because it did this neat trick where it shrank down to a large coin when I needed it to.

Much more convenient, but it did mean I relied on luck to pick between my two weapon options - spear or sword. The coin glittered in the morning sun, morphing as it fell into my familiar spear. I grimaced internally. Sure, I could use a spear fine, but I generally preferred a sword.

But it would look stupid to flip it again and again until it came down the way I wanted, and more than anything these fights were about image. My coin trick got a little kudos from the crowd, even though they were used to it. It wasn’t much, but some respect for a quality piece of equipment was better than nothing.

Besides, there was no time. The gong had been the signal, and now the animals were out for blood. The Fifth formed up into small groups. This wasn't really in keeping with traditional beastarii fights, but hey. Even we change with the times...sometimes. With a _lot_ of complaining from the _lares_.

A lion circled the three-pointed defensive ring I'd instinctively shifted into with Pablo and Anya. We watched it warily, staying balanced lightly on our feet, weapons at the ready. The crowed jeered and catcalled, goading us to go on the offensive and do something _interesting._

I itched to do what they said. I was sick of sitting and waiting for the first blow to fall. We knew we were going to fight, so why not just _go for it?_ Static shivered over my skin at the thought, sparks leaping from me. Pablo yelped as they stung him and Anya hissed my name sharply in admonishment.

The lion sprang, but we were no longer ready for it. Pablo went down, paws on his shoulders, claws digging into the bare skin. Anya turned quicker than I could, jabbing with her sword at the beast's eyes, driving it away. The lion snarled, braced to pounce again, and I lunged in, spear driving forwards. It lodged in the metallic flank and was wrenched from my grip, but it'd done the job. The lion sank to the floor, twitching, the illusion ending as its self-sensors told it it was 'dead'.

Pablo scrambled up, blood trickling down his chest, gasping for air.

"Sorry." I muttered the apology, feeling the sparks fizzle out over my skin. I was getting better at controlling lightning, but it still got away from me sometimes. We were just lucky it was small static sparks that tended to form, not a proper lightning bolt. He jerked one wounded shoulder in a shrug, dismissing it as he picked up his sword, and waved for me to retrieve my own weapon.

The spear was stuck more thoroughly than I realised, and foolishly I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. A snarl was the only warning I got before something cannoned into me, claws out. I rolled with it, the spear yanking free of the dead lion. Small mercy, because my side was being torn to ribbons by sharp teeth and claws.

I could _feel_ lightning singing in the air. It would be so easy, _so_ easy, to just fry the thing and have done. But that was _cheating._ I had to prove I could do this with my own two hands, else everyone could just shrug and say ‘well, he’s a son of _Jupiter_ , what do you _expect_ _’_.

Something knocked the creature off of me, and I scrambled to my feet - and froze. It was a leopard. Spear balanced in my hands, the animatron struggling to right itself and get out from under the carcass of the lion, I could have taken it down no problem.

But I couldn’t. Even though I _knew_ it wasn’t a real leopard, I just couldn’t make the kill. All I could see was another leopard, a real one, being baited and driven towards an executioner, roaring defiance…the things you saw on quests stayed with you, like it or not. If you were lucky, they only stayed with you as life lessons and the odd dream, but other times… I couldn’t help thinking that if I struck this one down, Bacchus would come down on me with the same fury he’d been full of then. I trembled, indecisive, the roars of the crowd drowned out by the memory of the Bacchae’s screeches.

It was almost a relief when the leopard recovered and lunged, jaws clasping around my throat and crushing, squeezing the life out of me.


	4. III. Storm warnings

I maybe wasn’t so full of relief when I came around. There was a great moment when I just floated in a hazy fog of _hey, what happened?_ before the memory came crashing down. I’d just _stood_ there and let it attack me.

My name was going to be _mud_ around Camp. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it would be the first in recent years when I felt I really _deserved_ it. I groaned, and someone laughed quietly. It was a familiar laugh, and that in itself was surprising.

Not just because I wouldn’t expect Reyna of all people to pitch up at my infirmary bedside. But because I was still getting used to hearing her actually _laugh_. Not that she didn’t have a sense of humour. It was just that it was way more likely to be expressed by a slight twitch of the lips or quirked eyebrow. Reyna generally didn’t _do_ strong signs of emotion in public, whether they were positive or negative.

I turned my head, flinching as my bruised neck protested, to give her a weak glare. She just quirked an eyebrow at me, not looking fazed in the slightest.

“I could do with a joke.”

“Just realised how long people are going to laugh at you about this, huh?” She still sounded amused, but at least there was maybe a drop of sympathy there. “I got a leopard too. Freezes you up, doesn’t it.”

“Did you go down?”

“No.” I raised an eyebrow, and she sighed, shrugging. “I thawed in time and cut of its head.”

Strangely, that didn’t exactly make me feel better about the situation.

“That said, I saw it coming on the first attack so it wasn’t entirely out of the blue.” _That_ did, because I could pretend that if I’d watched the first approach I would have been able to brace myself and work through it. Though maybe not. Reyna was a daughter of Bellona, goddess of war. She was pretty good at narrowing her focus and doing what had to be done, no matter what else was happening. I was more…erratic, leaping from thing to thing.

“Not that I’m not glad to see you…” She scowled, briefly, then looked away. After a moment I followed her gaze to the end of the room they’d partitioned off for the sick children of Trivia. “Oh. Visiting..?”

“Yeah. No-one in particular…just checking in, I guess.”

“I’m sorry about Anika.” Her expression closed over, briefly, then cracked. It was my turn to look away. I didn’t know what to say to that raw grief. Anika had been tough, a little hard line, but overall pretty decent.

She’d taken Reyna under her wing for the brief days between her arrival and us going on our quest. When we got back she’d kept it up, looking out for Reyna as was her duty as centurion. But if Mel and Alexei, _my_ centurions, were anything to go by, _duty_ was a very dry word for the way a centurion - correction, a _good_ centurion - approached that part of the role. As a new arrival, they were your counsellor and your team leader, there to help you out no matter what else was going on. And there usually was a _lot_ going on, between training, monster attacks, and whatever you’d dealt with on your journey to New Rome and relative safety.

I still didn’t know anything about Reyna’s life before she’d come to Camp Jupiter. She closed up completely whenever it came up, and I’d learned not to push her on it. I’d also learned to trust her, and I thought just maybe she’d started to trust me back, at least a little. But Anika had taken her at face value, every time, from the word go. If Reyna said she could do something, she’d been allowed to get on with it. I wondered what losing that kind of support would feel like, and shuddered. I could imagine it all too easily - it was what woke me up most nights those days.

“Yeah. She was a good centurion. Wonder…” she cleared her throat. “Wonder who the next one’s going to be.”

“So long as it isn’t Dannie.”

“It won’t be. _No-one_ would ever give Dannie responsibility for anything involving organisation.” We shared a brief smile, then fell back into serious gloom.

“I’ve been having dreams.” It was an abrupt switch, and it was clear this was what Reyna had been waiting to talk to me about. When she didn’t continue, I raised an eyebrow again. My throat was complaining at being made to work while I spoke, and I didn’t want to say anything I didn’t actually need to. I was in enough pain already without adding to it. And I figured Reyna hadn’t been sitting on a visitor’s chair just to inform me she sometimes had dreams. She took a breath and glanced around quickly, checking no one had come into earshot in the last few seconds.

“The… _voice_ is in them.”

We both shuddered that time. We knew what the voice was, if not who: one of the Titans. But saying so aloud was dangerous, risked drawing attention we absolutely couldn’t afford, so we didn’t say it. We didn’t _need_ to. After overhearing that dark, cold voice on our helpful lift home from Bacchus the autumn before…we knew what we were discussing.

“Not saying anything that I can hear…there’s a lot of wind, and waves, and lighting.” She shot me a sharp glance, and I shrugged. “And…anger and hurt. Being torn in all directions. Then I wake up and glare at the bottom of Dannie’s bunk and hope it really is just an odd dream.” She didn’t sound convinced at the idea at all, which didn’t surprise me. Sure, halfbloods did get regular dreams - and nightmares - but we also got the occasional vision while we were sleeping. It could be hard to tell the difference sometimes if you weren’t paying attention, but you could usually distinguish the two.

“You think _I_ might be part of it.” She shrugged a shoulder, leaning back on her chair, face clam and contained once more.

“Maybe. Wind and lightning are definitely _your_ wheelhouse…or maybe it’s not related to you at all, and I’m just getting the weather from somewhere else. But I figured I should let you know, just in case.”

And she left with a brisk nod. This was typical Reyna, a lot of the time. When she was in business mode, she got the task done and moved along. Hearing people walking past outside, I guessed that it was time for lunch, or near enough. I’d been out for the rest of the morning, but I was still sleepy, lethargic. And if I’m being honest, I just didn’t want to go and face the rest of the Legion just yet. Not everyone would be as sympathetic as Reyna.

So I dozed back off, and fell straight into a dream of my own.

Maybe it was Reyna who’d set it off, because there was a fierce storm raging over an unfamiliar sea. Only this being me, son of the sky god, I _was_ the storm. I was a floating ghost of myself, but I was also the wind and the clouds and the lightning, all at once. The surface of the sea bucked and heaved, writhing like something alive. Something _angry_. But the storm was angry too, and somehow that was making _me_ angry as well. A hopeless rage, a feeling like I was been torn in all directions with the wind.

I struggled to break free of the storm, but I couldn’t. The more I tried to escape it, to rise above and see what was going on, the louder the wind roared and the brighter the lighting that struck the sea, over and over and over.

Exhausted, I floated in the storm until it dissipated, and I was just a few ragged clouds. The sea was still shifting as fiercely, though, despite the lack of wind. It was still alive and angry, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I had no energy left to care _with._

And the cold voice started to laugh.


End file.
